two

Marisa stood in the doorway of my cottage, wearing a large purple hat—the sort that English women wear to weddings—with a brim that shaded her face. She also wore dark glasses to hide what I assumed was the redness of her eyes.

I had rarely seen her in the past few days, as she avoided meals at the villa—a final affront to the Grants, for whom the dining table was a primary scene where their secular liturgy was enacted beneath a huge Neapolitan clock that ticked slowly and loudly. Nobody was going to kick her out, and it struck me as perfectly possible that Marisa might linger, awkwardly, for a month or two, just to make Grant’s life miserable.

Now Marisa lurched toward me, smelling of wine. “Do I visit you again, Lorenzo? I will come tonight, if you say it. You have made love so nicely to me, I don’t forget.”

“I’d rather you didn’t,” I said.

“You have not found me sexy?” Her voice was plaintive, childlike, and her lips formed a kind of pout. “I have remember this night forever, you sexy man.”

“I liked being with you, too,” I said.

She shook her head. “Vera has told me the truth about you.”

“And what’s that?”

“You have love this Patrice, the French boy. Is this what you want? A boy to love?”

I suppressed a cynical smile. Could Vera have really stooped this low? It seemed unlikely.

Marisa persisted. “So you are sad that he has denied you. I can understand you on this. We have much in common.”

“I don’t want to sleep with Patrice.”

“Or Toni, the American girl?”

“We are friends,” I said, “and that’s it.”

“You are lying. I have seen you having lunch to her in the piazzetta. She is very beautiful, and I am not ignorant.”

I just shook my head.

“Please, I am sorry about this, Lorenzo.” She took off her sunglasses and wiped her eyes. “I have not been so easy to you, I understand. Forgive this.”

I felt sad, but could not explain my feelings to her. I could not explain them to myself.

“You are beautiful, too,” I said. I touched her cheek with my fingertips, as though she were a piece of marble statuary.

“Don’t you touch me!” she said, slapping away my hand. “Don’t you think to touch me again!”

She turned and walked away, a mystery. And I felt an ache inside, aware that I wanted her again. I thought of calling her back, saying, “Yes, please come tonight! I will be waiting for you!” But I knew my own heart well enough to understand that I would be faking a kind of affection I didn’t own. That was the worst kind of lie, and it would have been cruel. What I had already done was cruel enough, and there was no point in compounding my crime.